That might depend on how transparent your prospective schools are about their admissions process. If possible, review the application site/sheet that you applied with and check to see if there is information about decision notification there. You can also try to find this information by reading over the site's Terms and Conditions (trust me, you find out a lot of information by reading through all that nonsense)
One of my schools, for example, specifies on their admissions website and in their application packet how they go about notifying students of their decisions. This school let me know when they had received my application and all supporting materials and continues to post updates regarding the admissions process. Another school, I applied to specifies nothing and doesn't even confirm if they received my application; so it really depends on the school you're concerned with.